Video: Masking blond hair

All right, it is time for the second project in this chapter. This time around we are going to mask the woman you see before you on screen. This image is called Woman with flame.jpg. It is found inside of the 16 Tough Stuff folder and it comes to us from Photographer, Andre Barack (ph) of iStockPhoto. And this image presents us with three challenges, count them, three here. And the first challenge is that we have a warm subject against the warm background and we have a very warm subject indeed. Though she has actually sort of pink skin tones with these reddish shadows, some red eye make up on, she has got red straps on her shoulders, she has got pink lips, she has got, kind of, this yellowish platinum hair and the only part of her that is the least bit cool is her irises but that is not going to help us out in this case, because she is set against this screaming red background. So we don't have the complementary colors to work with that we have in the case of examples from previous chapters. So that is challenge number one.

The elusive alpha channel remains one of the most misunderstood yet powerful tools in Photoshop. Alpha channels are collections of luminance data that control the transparency of an image, and they inform just about every aspect of Photoshop. As he builds transitional blended layers, fashions a depth map, makes edge adjustments, and takes on extreme channel mixing, Omni Award-winning expert Deke McClelland teaches Photoshop users that where there's a will, there's a way. Photoshop CS3 Channels and Masks: Advanced Techniques covers mapping texture on an image, turning flesh into stone, using vector masks, working with all different channels, creating a rustic edge effect, and much more. Exercise files accompany the tutorials.

Masking blond hair

All right, it is time for the second project in this chapter. This time aroundwe are going to mask the woman you see before you on screen. This image iscalled Woman with flame.jpg. It is found inside of the 16 Tough Stuff folderand it comes to us from Photographer, Andre Barack (ph) of iStockPhoto. Andthis image presents us with three challenges, count them, three here.And the first challenge is that we have a warm subject against the warmbackground and we have a very warm subject indeed. Though she has actually sortof pink skin tones with these reddish shadows, some red eye make up on, she hasgot red straps on her shoulders, she has got pink lips, she has got, kind of,this yellowish platinum hair and the only part of her that is the least bitcool is her irises but that is not going to help us out in this case, becauseshe is set against this screaming red background. So we don't have thecomplementary colors to work with that we have in the case of examples fromprevious chapters. So that is challenge number one.

Challenge number two is that she has blonde hair, and as I mentioned she is,kind of, a platinum blonde and we saw in previous examples how when you areworking with dark haired people especially if their hair is very dark. You canmultiply their hair into a new background. So your might expect with alight-haired person you could go ahead and screen the hair but that does notwork because it gives you something of a glowing effect. It is very unnatural.It is kind of a fiery effect.And speaking of fire you may have noticed this flame right here, and that ischallenge number three and we are going to mask that flame and posited itagainst a different background and it's going to look absolutely amazing. I guarantee it.

So those are our three challenges that lie in wait for us. I should say just bya way of little FYI here. That I feature this exact same image inside of amasking example in my book Photoshop CS3 One on One and for those of you whohave seen that example and even worked through it. I want you to know that weare not going to be doing exactly the same thing. We are going to becompositing this Woman against a different background for a one thing.Also in a book, I do some of the steps for you so I have some stuff preparedfor you in advance. In this example, I have nothing prepared for you inadvance. So are going to do all the work yourself and then finally we are goingto take advantage of the few different techniques as we move through thisimage; so familiar image, different stuff in lying in wait for you.

All right, so let's start things of by creating the base alpha channel, shallwe. And, of course, in order to do that we need to take a look at the channelsthat we already have inside of this image. So Ctrl+1 for red; a very, verybright channel here, that's Command+1 on the Mac. Ctrl+2 or Command+2 for theGreen channel; Lots of contrast going on, very nice channel. And Ctrl+3 orCommand+3 for the Blue channel less contrast than the Green channel and if youtake a look here. We have some very good shoulder detail inside of this channelbut we are loosing some of the hair; some of the finer threads of hair havegone away inside of this channel. And the flame is extremely weak.

Let's go back to the Red channel for a moment. Here you can see the flame isvery, very strong inside of this channel and we have these tiny little hairsall over the place inside this channel, very nice. Also good shoulder detail, alot of banding in the background that's a bad thing and, of course, a verybright background especially in this region on the left side of the head that'sgoing to be difficult to mask, all right.Let's go to the Green channel for a moment. It is really good. I mean we havesome nice little hair is going on, not quite as much as in the red channel. Theflame is a little weaker but it is still very evident. Nice shoulder detail,you'll have some problems with the dress dropping off there. So we are going tohave to work on that and we also have a low level of contrast going on, on theleft side of the head. So, again, it's going to take some work to get this area right.

All right, so here is what we are going to do. We are going to establish a basealpha channel by blending the Red and Green channels together with theCalculations command. In fact we are going to add them together as you willsee. So I am going to click off the selection to deselect it. Let's just goahead and reinstate the RGB composite image by pressing Ctrl+~ or Command+~ onthe Mac. And I am going to press the F key to enter the full-screen mode sothat I can move over a little so I have room for the Calculations dialog box.Now let's go to the Image menu and choose the Calculations command. And I willgo ahead and move the dialog box down a little bit. Source one and Source twoshould both be set to Woman with flame.jpg. Layers, both of the layer optionsshould be set to background. The first channel should be set to Red, the secondchannel should be set to Green. Both of the Invert check boxes are turned off,my friends; and let's go ahead and change the blend mode from screen which ispretty good actually to add, which will work better for our purposes.

And then that is too hot, as you can see the highlights are way too hot, weneed to darken up the image a little by taking the offset value down to -70.Now if I felt like the shoulders were too harsh, the transitions and theshoulders were too harsh then I could go ahead and increase the scale value inorder to soften that information but I actually like this quite a bit. And Ithink this is going to work out very nicely for us. So, let's go ahead andclick OK in order to create the new alpha channel and let's move the image overhere so that we can bring back the palettes. I am going to switch over to the Channels palette.

Let's rename that new alpha channel. R+G and we will also say -70 right thereand that will tell us that we have- 70 offset value. I should enter the Addmode as well. So we have R+B, add -70. And, of course, the only thing that canbe -70 is the offset values.So that is a great name; it will remind me of exactly how I got this channel inthe first place. That is our base alpha channel. We are going to modify it tomake it work better. We are going to create two iterations of this channelusing the Levels Command starting in the next exercise.

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